Dear All, I know you are all waiting for the news. The High tunnel is up! We finished end walls and pulled the plastic in two long weekends after long week days. If I had known how much work it is to put up a 21'x104' high tunnel I would have gladly paid the $1500 to have it put up. We did not level the ground, but followed the natural line of the gardens and the bit unevenness haunted us till the very end. Also working with the extra strong 2"pipe, having to put holes in to screw down a channel to hold the edges with"wiggle wire" was a bear. New sharp drill bits did not touch the pipe. I ended up making holes all the way through the pipe with a hole punch. This required 20-40 hits with the hammer on a ladder and every 200 hits I would wack my thumb good. I was soar for two days, thumb-less. Jeremy, Ian Kealey and Bill put in many hours into the tunnel while watching the garden get weedy and with all that rain we could not disc to put in new plantings, We got the carrots in on time.

hoisting the 200lb roll up the rafters

Birdsfooters also helped.. Thank you!

unfurling the plastic, no wind!

By putting the plastic on mid day when the sun is out we had the danger of more wind (when the sun is up), but got it tighter because it stretched fully heated up by the sun.

Also the world-cup women soccer ended yesterday with a beautiful game and the USA winning! The gardens can have me back, no more soccer and tunnel.

In your boxes are peas, mixed greens, garlic scapes (use like garlic or onions), lemon balm (use as tea or in cooking). The zucchini and summer squash look yellow from all the rain and cool weather . This morning I saw the first green growth, so I think they will come around and we don't have to reseed. The spinach is done for a while. The beds got sick and lost 60% of the spinach. We hot water treated the seed and have to put in another planting as soon as we work the ground again. There are tomatoes and peppers on the plants to come in a few weeks.. (Next year we have early tomatoes in the tunnel). The firs beets got frosted, the second beet got eaten to the ground by? The third beets are coming up.

We planted the netted tunnel full with broccoli, kale and cabbage, all looking good.